


Out of Focus

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [25]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blurry vision, Clone Wars, Confusion, Gen, Injury, They're so young, Whump, Whumptober 2020, give them hugs, mild violence, non-graphic, someone take better care of these babies, stupid war, visual impairment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: Anakin crashes his starfighter, again.But this time, he doesn't walk away 'okay.'Written for Whumptober 2020Day 25 - Blurred Vision
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	Out of Focus

“Master! _Master!_ ”

“General? Can you hear us?”

There’s a loud screeching noise, metal on metal; a grunt of effort. “Ow.”

“Step aside, I want to—”

“Hold on, let me move that.”

Another screeching, scraping noise and a loud bang.

“Can you sense him?”

“Yes. He’s close, but he’s not fully…conscious. Master!”

Anakin Skywalker blinks dazedly. Each flicker of his eyelids hurts like a mallet to the head; he shuts his eyes and moans, trying to wish himself back to sleep.

“Did you hear—”

“General!”

More scraping and banging, and the thud and scrape of uneven footsteps on unstable ground. The floor Anakin is sitting on trembles as someone puts their weight on it.

“Master!”

That’s Snips.

“ _General!_ ”

And Rex.

Anakin doesn’t open his eyes. It hurts too much – to open them, to have them closed, to move his eyelids at all. He tries to speak, but all that comes out is a strangled “Mmnhhhhggnnngg.”

“Kriff, he doesn’t look good. Master? I’m coming to help you. Stay still. We’ll get you to the medics.”

“Mmm…kay, Snips,” Anakin slurs. There’s a glitter of warm affection in the Force, and then Ahsoka is beside him, gently checking his pulse and searching him for obvious injuries.

“He’s got a bad knock on the head, or several,” Ahsoka informs the Captain. “His ribs seem damaged, but I think they’re fractured, not broken.”

“Let’s get him to Kix, then.”

More shuffling, and then Anakin feels himself lifted as gently as possible and carried out of what has to be wreckage of some kind.

“I crash again, ‘Soka?” he asks.

“Yeah, Skyguy, you did,” she answers him, huffing slightly as she helps Rex maneuver the battered Jedi into warm sunlight and the sound of other troopers moving about nearby. “You’re gonna be okay, though. Rest.”

Anakin is set on some sort of tarp or canvas, on his back, his head lolling to one side. With his ear pressed against the ground, he can feel and hear it when Kix runs over. “General Skywalker, glad to see you,” the medic says. “I’m going to check you over. Stay awake for me just a little longer, sir.”

“Okay Kix,” Anakin mumbles, and promptly loses consciousness.

* * *

  
Anakin wakes in the medbay. He can hear the beeping of monitors, the hum of the air purifier, and distant voices.

His eyes don’t hurt anymore, so he opens them.

It’s incredibly bright.

Anakin blinks repeatedly, trying to force his eyes to adjust, but they won’t. Everything is a bright, white blur.

“Hey, hey, General, stop that.” It’s Kix. Two gloved fingers gently settle on Anakin’s eyelids, forcing him to close them. “Better. Keep them closed for a bit, sir. Now. Are you in any pain today?”

“Mmm…” Anakin thinks about it. “Not really. Head aches.”

The hand over his eyes shifts, and Kix begins gently massaging the area between Anakin’s eyebrows, alleviating some of the pain.

“ _Thanks_ ,” Anakin groans.

There’s a strange silence.

“General…” Kix says slowly. “I know you’re not going to like this, but we’re on a ship back to Coruscant. I’ve had you recalled to the Temple.”

“ _What?_ But what about the campaign?”

“General Unduli is certain she can finish it without you. Rex is leading the 501st in your stead.”

“Luminara—Rex—but what about Ahsoka?” Anakin asks, suddenly worried.

“Relax sir,” Kix says, pushing the General back down onto the bed, and Anakin realizes he had tried to sit upright. “Commander Tano is fine. She insisted on staying with you, however.”

Anakin mulls this over.

“...How badly am I hurt?”

Kix sighs.

The gentle ministrations cease, and Kix removes his hand from Anakin’s eyes. “Do you remember how you couldn’t see straight when you opened your eyes? You tried blinking to make them focus.”

“Yeah?” Anakin’s heart begins to pound.

“General, you…you hit your head pretty badly. And this isn’t the first time. It…you’ve damaged your optics, General. Your eyesight is shot; you can’t seem to focus on anything closer than ten feet or farther away than fifteen, and even then…”

“Today’s not the _first_ time I woke since the crash, is it?” Anakin asks nervously, fisting his hands into the bedcovers.

“No sir. You’ve been having memory problems too, sir. The only difference is…” Kix’s hand gently brushes across Anakin’s forehead. “…The memory problems will go away with time. I’m afraid your eyesight is only going to get worse.”

“Worse?” Anakin says hoarsely. “ _Worse?_ ”

“Sir, we can discuss this more after the Jedi Healers have seen to you. There’s reason for hope.”

“Reason for hope?” Anakin cries. “ _What’s happening to my vision?_ ”

There’s the sound of a door sliding open, and then Ahsoka’s signature is flooding the room. She’s very obviously letting him know who she is, that she’s here, and that she’s happy to see him.

Anakin opens his eyes.

Kix protests – “Sir, no, you need to rest them! Aggravating them will only—”

But Anakin doesn’t listen, he can’t. He stares as hard as he can, blinking rapidly, at the spot he knows his Padawan is standing. There’s a blur of painful brightness, swirling whiteness from the med cabin walls, a faint shiver of gleaming silver that could be anything, and an orange smudge.

“Master,” Ahsoka says urgently.

The orange smudge grows. Ahsoka is approaching the bed. “Skyguy, you gotta keep your eyes closed, at least for now, okay?”

Anakin sits upright, feeling Kix tugging in his shoulder, hearing him bark orders, but Anakin is staring hard at the orange-blue-grey-white blur that must be his Padawan, must be Ahsoka. But even as his eyes begin to burn, the image doesn’t get any clearer.

Kix and Ahsoka force him to lie back. There’s a hand in his hair, gently soothing him, and one on his chest keeping him pinned to the bed. Anakin’s head is speared with violent pain that has him jolting against their hands and crying out; his eyes strain to see them, but there’s only foggy blurs and flashes of painful light.

Someone must sedate him, because Anakin realizes that he is falling asleep.

“No,” he tries to say. “No, no, no, my eyes—”

And then the drugs carry him into oblivion, and even though she’s right in front of his face, Anakin can’t see Ahsoka looking back at him as his eyes close again.

**Author's Note:**

> The next story in my Whumptober series will be a sequel to this one.


End file.
